Democracy And Its Discontents

India Must Strengthen Institutions That Lie Between the Public Sphere and Formal Government Institutions.

Civilisation progresses with the evolution of institutions designed by humans to govern their affairs. Institutions of electoral democracy have evolved over the centuries, with notable innovations in the U.K., France and the U.S. that provided models for electoral democracies everywhere. These models have been vigorously exported by Western countries to promote democracy around the world. Now, the system of democracy invented in the West and exported to the rest is failing in the West. “Are Western democracies becoming ungovernable?” asks The Economist. Elected governments are in office, but not in power, it says. Many countries in Europe cannot form stable governments because the largest party does not command a majority. Coalitions are unstable. Parliaments are unable to pass laws. “The home of failure to pass meaningful laws is the United States”, it says. Americans will point a finger back to The Economist’s home country: the performance of political parties in the British House of Commons has not been edifying either.

Democracy in India

By these yardsticks, democracy is shining in India. With a strong government at the Centre, Parliament has passed a slew of big laws recently. The most recent is the change in the governance set-up of Jammu and Kashmir, which has been haunting India’s constitutional arrangements.